U.S. Wants Polar Bears on
Endangered List

By Juliet Eilperin, Stop Global
Warming

Global warming
could drive one of the world's most recognizable animals out of
existence.

The
Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government
on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world's
most recognizable animals out of existence.

The administration's proposal -- which was described by an Interior
Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity -- stems
from the fact that rising temperatures in the Arctic are shrinking the
sea ice that polar bears need for hunting. The official insisted on
anonymity because the department will submit the proposal today for
publication in the Federal Register, after which it will be subject to
public comment for 90 days.

Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from
power-plant and vehicle emissions is helping drive climate change
worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the
legal question of whether the government would be required to compel
U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output.

"We've reviewed all the available data that leads us to believe the sea
ice the polar bear depends on has been receding," said the Interior
official, who added that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have
concluded that polar bears could be endangered within 45 years.
"Obviously, the sea ice is melting because the temperatures are warmer."

Northern latitudes are warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the
globe, according to a 2004 scientific assessment, and by the end of the
century annual ocean temperatures in the Arctic may rise an additional
13 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, researchers predict that summer sea
ice, which polar bears use as a platform to hunt for ringed seals, will
decline 50 to 100 percent. Just this month, researchers at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research outlined a worst-case scenario in which
summer sea ice could disappear by 2040.

By submitting the proposal today, the Interior Department is meeting a
deadline under a legal settlement with three environmental advocacy
groups -- the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources
Defense Council and Greenpeace -- that argue the government has not
responded quickly enough to the polar bear's plight. The department has
been examining the status of polar bears for more than two years.

NRDC senior attorney Andrew Wetzler, one of the lawyers who filed suit
against the administration, welcomed the proposal for listing.

"It's such a loud recognition that global warming is real," Wetzler
said. "It is rapidly threatening the polar bear and, in fact, an entire
ecosystem with utter destruction."

There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide, 4,700 of which live in
Alaska and spend part of the year in Canada and Russia. The other
countries with polar bears in their Arctic regions are Denmark
(Greenland) and Norway.

Although scientists have yet to fully assess many of the 19 separate
polar bear populations, initial studies suggest that climate change has
already exacted a toll on the animals.

The ice in Canada's western Hudson Bay breaks up 2 1/2 weeks earlier
than it did 30 years ago, giving polar bears there less time to hunt and
build up fat reserves that sustain them for eight months before hunting
resumes. As local polar bears have become thinner, female polar bears'
reproductive rates and cubs' survival rates have fallen, spurring a 21
percent population drop from 1997 to 2004.

Scientists have not charted the same rapid decline within the U.S. polar
bear populations, but federal scientists have observed a number of
troubling signs. The bears have resorted to open-water swimming and even
cannibalism in an effort to stay alive.

Polar bears normally swim from one patch of sea ice to another to hunt
for food, but they are not accustomed to going long distances. In
September 2004, government scientists observed 55 polar bears swimming
offshore in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, an unprecedented spike, and four
of those bears died. In a separate study that year, federal scientists
identified three instances near the Beaufort Sea in which polar bears
ate one another.

The Interior official said government officials studying Alaskan polar
bears in the southern Beaufort Sea area have observed thinner adult
bears and a lower rate of survival among cubs. Although the population
has yet to dip, "unless the polar cub survival rate goes up, it would
have to happen," the official said.

Still, the official added that the decision to propose polar bears as
threatened with extinction "wasn't easy for us" because "there is still
some significant uncertainty" about what could happen to bear
populations in the future.

"This proposal is sort of like a scientific hypothesis. You put this out
there and say to the world, 'Tell us, is this right or is this wrong?' "
the official said, adding that Interior will hold several public
hearings about its proposal. "We're projecting what we think will happen
in the future, not just what's happening at this moment."

The department could take up to a year to complete its proposal, and it
could abandon the listing if it unearths new scientific projections
about the bears' fate. But that appears unlikely, as recent models have
consistently pointed to a faster deterioration of Arctic sea ice.

Although federal officials cited rising sea temperatures once before in
a threatened-species proposal -- in May, when they called them a "major
stressor" on Caribbean elkhorn and staghorn corals -- today's proposal
will mark the first time the administration has identified climate
change as the driving force behind the potential demise of a species.

Robert Correll, the scientist who chaired the international Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment in 2004, said in an interview that the
proposal to place polar bears on the endangered species list is "highly
justified."

Correll, now directs the global change program at the H. John Heinz III
Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, added that he is
participating in an administration-funded study at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies on how climate change could affect
national security and foreign policy.

That, along with the proposal on polar bears, he said, "plays into a
reality that, in my opinion, they're going to be rethinking their
position" on global warming.